5/5 Excellent teaming
  by Daniel Wickham (Western NY-USA)
Selleck and Elliot team to bring an excellent tale of the early western families and the times in the 1860's. Both men seem to look the type we invision when we think of rough and tough cowboys/pioneers. This , I believe was made fo TV. Selleck and Elliot both made several western type movies for TV and I liked them all. If you are a western fan, you can't go wrong, and the stars are ruggedly good looking so the ladies will enjoy the story also.
Well woth the watch.

5/5 Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts
  by Scott Woolley (Australia)
Being a lover of westerns, both books and movies, I've been a fan of Louis L'Amour for many years. I've had a VHS copy of this movie and was only too happy to purchase a DVD version, because I've watched it about 4 times already, I will pull it out every couple of years and watch it again. Would have to rate as one of the Best.

1/5 Read the books...skip the movie.
  by Joseph Levitt (Indianapolis, Indiana USA)
I love Louis L'Amour, especially his epic series: The Sacketts. The stories are believable, tautly written and accessible for just about anyone. Unfortunately, the same cannot not be said about this movie, which is based upon two of the stories: The Daybreakers and Sackett. With great anticipation I watched this movie. I wanted to enjoy it, but no matter how hard I tried I coundn't for one simple reason: The acting is atrocious! Tom Selleck is awful. Mercedes McCambridge is awful (really awful), and sadly, worst of all is Glenn Ford. The best acting comes from the veterans Ben Johnson and Sam Elliot, barely. What frustrates me is that these are talented actors! What kind of direction were they receiving from Robert Totten?? "One take and next scene" must have been his credo. Really disappointing.
Don't waste your money. Read the books instead.

1/5 Poorly Acted, Disjointed, Waste of Talent
  by George B. Cole (Petersburg, AK USA)
From the opening scenes where Ma Sackett is poorly acted by Mercedes McCambridge to the final wornout cliche scene where the heroes emerge unscathed by thousands of bullets shot at them to stride manly-man style down main street, this made for TV movie is a waste of time and money. The story jumps haphazardly from plotline to plotline and cuts from some scenes without ever resolving where the scene was headed. A girl in a thin dress and no supplies survives for 2 years in mountains that kill experienced mountain men with sudden snows! Are you kidding me? Kid Newton is ridiculous as the arch evil bad guy. Tom Selleck leaves home and heads west without so much as a slicker or bedroll. Glen Ford turns from good guy to bad guy with little or no explanation other than he was a lawyer in New Orleans. Louis L'Amour's introduction was banal, brief, and boring. I could not believe actors of this quality and experience would allow this movie to be released. They were obviously gathered for their star power, thrown together in a hastily and poorly written screen adaptation of two pretty good books, and mis-directed by Robert Totten. Shame on all of them!

3/5 Too little payoff for the viewing time invested
  by Jim Davis (Maryland Heights, MO USA)
This feature does have good qualities. The casting is spot on, the cinematography great, the character development good. It has the "feel" of a good western epic. One doesn't get the impression that any corners were cut.

Unfortunately, the pacing is glacial. There just isn't enough story to fill the 193 minutes of screen time. Worse, one of the story lines is wrapped up far too quickly despite the extensive build up it was given. The other story line conclusion is far more satisfactory but the wait seems interminable.

In short, this story could have been done on just one of the dvds. Not a bad western by any means but definitely flawed.